FEDERAL PRISON SYSTEMS BUREAU OF PRISONS STATEMENT OF NORMAN A. CARLSON, DIRECTOR H. G. MOELLER, DEPUTY DIRECTOR PAUL PLEIN, BUDGET OFFICER GARY R. MOTE, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT L. M. PELLERZI, ADMINISTRATION ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR JOHN J. KAMINSKI, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF BUDGET AND BUILDINGS AND FACILITIES APPEAL Senator MCCLELLAN. The next item relates to restoration request of $4,355,000, for the buildings and facilities appropriations of the Bureau of Prisons. BUDGET REQUEST AND HOUSE ALLOWANCE Mr. Carlson, will you come around, please, sir. The House took out some of your money in two or three places. The Department sought an additional $8,971,000 and 238 positions. The House reduced the request by $2,280,000, allowing an increase of only $6,691,000. Your appeal justification has already been placed in the record. The increase will support 171 additional positions. The Bureau of Prisons will adjust its program to be within the House allowance and no appeals are sought. These are statements from Attorney General Mitchell's prepared statement, which has been placed in the record. There is something in here about building facilities out in California, and also in North Carolina, as I recall. Tell us about these. What do you have money to build now? What did the House allow? They allowed you $6 million out of the $8 million requested. Mr. CARLSON. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I am Norman Carlson, Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. I have a prepared statement. PREPARED STATEMENT Senator MCCLELLAN. You may read your statement, if you would like. Mr. CARLSON. If it is all right with you, Senator, I will insert it in the record and highlight the important points. Senator MCCLELLAN. It will be printed in the record in full at this point. (The statement follows:) 46-370 0-70-20 STATEMENT OF DIRECTOR CARLSON I am Norman A. Carlson, Director of the Bureau of Prisons. I am here to support an appeal of $4,355,000 for the appropriation Buildings and Facilities. The budget estimates proposed a total of $27,350,000. The House Bill provides a total of $21,800,000 which is an increase of $16,360,000 over the 1970 appropriation and a reduction of $5,550,000 from the 1971 budget request. The Department of Justice recommends that $4,355,000 of the reduction be restored. Restoration of this amount will permit the Bureau of Prisons to start four major construction projects. These four are needed because of the pressures of an increasing number of confined prisoners and because appropriate facilities for certain types of offenders are simply not available. The four are: 1. Medical facility, Butner, North Carolina (planning)-. $550,000 The history of the Butner project is well known to this committee. Between 1962 and 1965 over $19,000,000 was appropriated for its construction. The design plans were ambitious, the construction bids were far too high, and as a result, we re-evaluated the proposal. We did not build. Subsequently, the appropriations for Butner were used to pay for other needed construction projects; the reprogramming done by both Congressional and Executive direction. We retained the site, we have spent over $1,250,000, including expenditures for site preparation and unfortunately $553,000 for architectural and engineering work which is not now applicable to our purposes. Yet, the need for a psychiatric study, research and treatment center that we envision Butner to be, is more urgent today than it has ever been. Today, we are seeing in our population an alarming increase in the number of offenders committed for violent, aggressive acts. In 1969, 998 commitments were for offenses we would classify as assaultive; this was almost 9% of the total committed for all federal offenses. We had about 3,400 such cases in the confined population or close to 17% of our total population. Moreover, we are experiencing more instances of acting-out, aggressive behavior at many of our institutions. Our concern is, of course, for the safety and security of our institutions but I think in a larger sense we must recognize that many of these criminals will be released, and in all likelihood will revert to criminal activity-unless we can find better means of treating and changing them. Butner holds great promise. Here we will be able to maintain some 300 offenders in a controlled environment. The site will be close to universities; it will serve as a model center to induce and draw on mental health talents not heretofore available to study and treat aggressive and violent criminal behavior; and we will be able to train correctional personnel to treat this type of offender in local institutional settings. We presently estimate the cost of constructing Butner to be $15,000,000. Although the precise staff configuration is not yet decided, I would predict that annual operating costs will be between $21⁄2 and $3 million. 2. Metropolitan Correctional Center, San Francisco (design and site) $1,100,000 Certainly one of the most vexing problems confronting corrections is the almost total inadequacy of local jails. With few exceptions, these are overcrowded, lack any correctional programming and, from a pragmatic standpoint, more often foster crime rather than deter it. The Bureau of Prisons is responsible for the care and safekeeping of over 3,000 federal prisoners who for varying reasons must be kept in local jails. Where we can, we are making every effort to improve conditions in local jails with which we have contracts. We do this by jailer training courses, by insistence that certain minimum standards be maintained and by regular inspection. Nevertheless, there are certain jails, principally in major metropolitan areas, that must be operated under conditions that we ourselves cannot improve and cannot continue to tolerate. The House Bill provides funds that will allow us to replace the federal counterpart of the local jail-the New York Detention Headquarters and allow us to undertake the planning for a federal facility in Chicago. Amounts for two additional facilities were not provided. In San Francisco, we are confining federal prisoners in a jail that is already overcrowded; as stated in our justifications, there are approximately 485 prisoners in a facility designed for 430. We have had many complaints regarding the conditions in this jail. We see no alternative other than providing a federal facility for federal prisoners. We estimate that the total cost of this facility, including the amount requested today, will be $8,950,000 or almost $9 million. Admittedly the cost appears high. On the basis that we will provide bed space for 165 inmates, the cost works out to $54,242 per bed. In another way of looking at it, the design calls for 125,000 square feet of useable space; thus, the construction cost estimate works out to $71.60 per square foot. The savings in contract jail costs and other services we will eventually generate will be relatively small, perhaps $200,000 per year. And these will be offset by our own operating costs. I would be less than candid if I did not put these facts in the record. But, I think this request must be considered on a basis that considers factors other than this seemingly high initial investment. -We must relieve the crowded situation in San Francisco. -We can, with this facility, provide much more than a simple jail operation. We intend to incorporate community treatment center programs, provisions for diagnostic services to the courts in the area, spaces for services to probationers and parolees. -Most important, we will be able to demonstrate that there is a viable alternative to the traditional crime inducing local jail. Finally, I am firmly convinced that the Bureau of Prisons must serve as a leader in the demonstration of innovative programs. Not only because we as an organization want to do better, but for the purpose the President stated in his directive of November 13, 1969: "... to make the Federal correctional system a prototype for the much needed overhaul of our generally archaic State and local corrections institutions." 3. Correctional Facilities for Women (design and site). $2,055, 000 One class of offender which has received minimal attention in the field of corrections is women. In terms of numbers in any. State or local system-and in the Federal System, for that matter-they represent a small percent of the offenders confined. In the smaller states particularly they are confined in facilities which may be an adjunct to a male institution. (This we do at our facility at Terminal Island.) There are frequently not sufficient numbers to warrant separate facilities for various classes of offenders; thus, the old are mixed with the young, the habitual criminal is mixed with the first or second offender, the violent or mentally ill are in contact with the non-violent, passive offender. We suffer these conditions at our own institutions for women. The proposal that we build new facilities for women in the western part of the country is prompted first by conditions that affect the Federal System: -We have at Terminal Island all the unfortunate conditions that I have just enumerated. -The physical plant itself is inadequate and the space could be better utilized for other purposes. -A growing Federal inmate population in the West is causing capacity problems which we must counteract by a phased plan for new facilities and restructuring of existing facilities, both for males and females. Our second consideration involves the potential that exists in cooperative, regional solutions to the problems of correctional treatment for female offenders. By having available a central facility sufficiently large and with sufficiently diversified programs, we would solve many of the problems that accompany small, diverse institutions. Again, we would have an opportunity to provide federal leadership in a critical area of corrections. The cost to complete these facilities is estimated at $9,500,000 total. We are now planning for a capacity of 300. I should point out that both of these figures are different than those we presented to the House Subcommittee this March. At that time we indicated a capacity of 450 and a total cost of $17,000,000. Since then I have had the planning requirements carefully re-examined with the objective of reducing cost to an amount compatible with optimum capacity and program needs. Just as we can provide regional facilities to house nonfederal offenders, the Federal Prison System can make arrangements to place certain of its offenders in suitable local facilities. 4. Metropolitan Correctional Center, Balitmore area (design and site)-- $650,000 The fourth and last item for which we request a restoration is the metropolitan correctional center which we want to build in the Baltimore area. The arguments for its need are essentially the same as I have advanced for San Francisco. The design concept follows closely that of the facilities for New York, Chicago and San Francisco: This facility will provide detention facilities for unsentenced and sentenced prisoners, community treatment services, probation and parole services, it will be a model. Again, I wish to make the cost estimates a matter of record. For Baltimore, the total cost to completion is estimated at $7,800,000. The design capacity is 156 making the initial cost $50,000 per bed. The planned square footage is 120,000 for a construction cost on this basis of $65.00 per square foot. The necessity that we build in a metropolitan area means higher costs. We will realize savings in contract costs, but again these will be offset by our own operating costs. Finally, our needs are governed not only by what we see today—an increasing federal population, overcrowded correctional facilities, sub-standard and overcrowded jails-but also by what I foresee in the more immediate future. Our law enforcement agencies are going to become more effective, our prisoner population is going to increase, our attempts to reduce recidivism must be fortified. While I have stated our assumptions on costs and inmate capacities, we must recognize that we are dealing with offenders whom we are not going to permanently keep behind bars. Within a year our proposed metropolitan centers will turnover four times their capacity. The average sentence imposed on the offenders committed to our institutions is less than four years. But, in the meanwhile, we cannot build needed facilities overnight. None of the new construction in this budget can be completed before 1974 or 1975. I think we must start now. This concludes my statement. I shall be glad to answer any questions regarding these appeal items or other programs of the Federal Prison System. INCREASE IN PRISON POPULATION Senator MCCLELLAN. Tell us about the $4,355,000 that you are appealing for restoration. Mr. CARLSON. Mr. Chairman, there are actually four separate projects which we are asking for restoration. There are several reasons for our request. First, the Federal prison population has been increasing rather dramatically during the past several years. Senator MCCLELLAN. What do you mean by several years? Senator MCCLELLAN. Two means several? Mr. CARLSON. Yes. Senator MCCLELLAN. The prison population of the country, State and Federal, has remained just about the same from 1960 or 1961 up to 2 years ago? It has been going up, since? That may be true. Notwithstanding the rapid rise in crime, the prison population throughout the country actually has declined for some of those years and now it has started back up. Am I correct about that? Mr. CARLSON. That is correct, sir. Senator MCCLELLAN. That is what I thought. You said several years, I thought we had better get that in the record, because it may have in the last 2 years. Mr. CARLSON. Right now we have approximately 700 inmates in the Federal prison system above the number we had a year ago. This rise has been going on for the past few months and we project a continued increase in the years ahead. MORE AGGRESSIVE AND SOPHISTICATED OFFENDERS: ROBBERY AND NARCOTIC VIOLATIONS INCREASE Senator MCCLELLAN. With respect to law enforcement, are we making any gains against the criminal forces; in other words, getting better law enforcement? Mr. CARLSON. It is too early to determine the reasons for the increase. We do know, however, that the number of people who are in confinement in our institutions has gone up. Also, the type of offender we have been receiving and retaining is more aggressive, more sophisticated than what we saw 3 or 4 years ago. Senator MCCLELLAN. Are we really getting at some of these, what I call habitual criminals? Mr. CARLSON. Yes; the number of offenders for example, who have been committed for the offenses of robbery and narcotics has been going up. At the same time, we have seen a decrease in the number of people committed for liquor law and immigration violations. There has been a shift of the type of offenders we receive. Senator MCCLELLAN. I think that shift may be significant and, certainly, it is gratifying that we are making more progress at getting after professional criminals who are out robbing, burglarizing, peddling narcotics, and so forth. Mr. CARLSON. At the present time, 13 percent of the total prison population is confined for the offense of robbery, which is certainly one of the most serious offenses. Senator MCCLELLAN. You may go ahead and tell us about these four facilities. MEDICAL-PSYCHIATRIC FACILITY AT BUTNER, N.C. Mr. CARLSON. There are four separate items, Mr. Chairman. The first is the medical-psychiatric facility that has been proposed for Butner, N.C. Senator MCCLELLAN. Is that the one we had under consideration here for a number of years? Mr. CARLSON. That is correct, Senator. This project has been under consideration since 1962 when funds were appropriated totaling over $19 million for this facility. The contract went out for bids twice on the project. On both occasions the low bids were far in excess of the funds appropriated. As a result, the project never got off the ground. Senator MCCLELLAN. Did we ever find out why it costs so much more than was estimated? Mr. CARLSON. There are several factors. One is, I think, that our design was probably overambitious, in terms of the size of the facility. Senator MCCLELLAN. That was before you became Director? Mr. CARLSON. That is correct. Senator MCCLELLAN. Were you in the service of the Bureau at that time? Mr. CARLSON. Yes, I was. The other factor has been the escalation in costs of construction. But I think the key factor was on overambitious plans. RESEARCH INSTITUTION TO DETERMINE CAUSES OF VIOLENCE Senator MCCLELLAN. Do you have a more modest estimate now? Mr. CARLSON. Yes; we are projecting a facility which is considerably more modest. We are asking for $550.000 for the planning of the facility. We are projecting an institution which will house 300 inmate patients who have emotional and psychiatric problems. The |